


The Meaning Of Life

by telperion_15



Category: Primeval
Genre: Angst, Character Death Fix, Community: smallfandomfest, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Homecoming, M/M, Near Future, Post-Apocalypse, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telperion_15/pseuds/telperion_15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in the future, Nick and Stephen make every effort to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the primeval_denial Mini Bang challenge, and the smallfandomfest prompt (spoiler - highlight to read) 'clone!Nick/clone!Stephen, It feels real'.
> 
> Spoilers for episodes 2.07, 3.03, 3.04, 3.05, 3.08, 3.09, 3.10 and 4.01.
> 
> A note about OCs:  
> Primeval fandom on LiveJournal has generated a number of fanon OCs, created by different authors and freely used by others, to the extent that some of them have now taken on lives of their own. The one that appears in this fic, Dr Sexton, belongs to nietie.

The early morning sun had risen, and was slanting straight into their shelter through several chinks in the roof. Nick scrunched up his face unhappily as a shaft of light struck his closed eyelids, and tried for a few moments to pretend it was possible to carry on sleeping.  
  
Eventually, however, he had to give up, and he opened his eyes and glared up at the point where the light was coming through, vowing to cover up that particular gap in the shelter’s roof as soon as breakfast was done.  
  
For the moment, though, the best he could do was slide an arm out from under the scrounged blanket and droop it over his eyes. Goosebumps threatened to break out on his skin thanks to the slightly chilly air, but the blanket kept the rest of him warm, as did the long, lean body pressed up against his back and breathing in warm gusts on to the nape of his neck.  
  
Nick angled his wrist so he could look at the time, and then stared dumbly for a moment until he remembered that his watch had stopped working several days ago. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure why he was still wearing it, except that to throw it away would be like getting rid of another piece of home.  
  
“It’s early,” a voice murmured suddenly in his ear. “About six, I’d say.”  
  
“The sun woke me,” Nick grumbled.  
  
“We’ll fix the roof later,” came the promise. “Now, why don’t you turn over and give me a good morning kiss?”  
  
Nick couldn’t help the smile that the suggestion elicited, and complied, doing his best to ignore the drafts that seeped under the edges of the blanket as he shuffled ungracefully on to his other side, and then looked into affectionate, amused, and annoyingly _awake_ blue eyes.  
  
“Good morning,” said Stephen.  
  
“Good morning,” replied Nick, and gave him the requisite kiss.  
  
Stephen’s arm curled around him, pulling him as close as possible, and Nick felt a certain part of his anatomy stirring at the contact.  
  
“Well, _good morning_ ,” said Stephen again, raising one eyebrow slightly. Then he smirked, and deliberately thrust his groin against Nick’s.  
  
Nick couldn’t stop the small moan that escaped his mouth. They didn’t often engage in activities of this type – it wasn’t generally advisable in their current circumstances, and normally they contented themselves with a bit of kissing and cuddling.  
  
“Stephen, we really shouldn’t…”  
  
“It’ll be fine,” Stephen told him. “Just…let’s have this, for once.”  
  
Nick couldn’t summon up any more arguments, and groaned again when Stephen worked a hand between them, pushed Nick’s boxers down as far as he could, and took hold of Nick’s rapidly hardening cock.  
  
The sensation of Stephen’s rough palm on smooth skin was exquisite, and Nick hurried to reciprocate before he got so lost in it that he forgot about his partner.  
  
They stroked each other roughly and clumsily until, with a moan muffled against the back of his hand, Nick came, followed soon after by Stephen.  
  
As he came down from the high, Nick shivered suddenly. The blanket had slipped during their exertions, and more cold air was crawling under it, chilling his back even through the t-shirt he was wearing.   
  
“It’s getting colder at nights,” Stephen commented, sounding annoyingly calm despite his orgasm only a moment before. “We may need to find another blanket.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Nick replied, knowing that, as easy as it was to say it, the realities of ‘finding another blanket’ would be much harder, and much more dangerous.  
  
“No, it’s not,” said Stephen. “And we can’t just keep on pretending it is until we wake up one morning frozen to death.”  
  
Nick thought about pointing out the contradiction in Stephen’s words, but the amusement that had returned to Stephen’s eyes told him that his companion was perfectly well aware of it, so he said nothing.  
  
“It’s not just keeping warm, either,” continued Stephen. “We need other things too. There are things here we can use, if we can get hold of them. Maybe we _could_ survive by rubbing two sticks together, and foraging for food down here, but maybe we couldn’t. We shouldn’t ignore the resources available to us.”  
  
“Not ignoring those resources could get us killed,” Nick countered.  
  
“So could trying to do without them.”  
  
Nick sighed, and rolled away from Stephen, momentarily regretting it when the movement took him fully out from under the cover of the blanket. Clambering to his feet, he wrinkled his nose at the sticky mess on his stomach, and grabbed a rather tired looking rag from a pile in the corner, dipped it in the bowl of washing water that was perched on a rock near the door, and wiped himself off as best he could before shrugging on a threadbare jumper and the pair of jeans he’d discarded last night, which, while dirty, were miraculously without holes as yet.  
  
“You know I’m right,” Stephen said.  
  
“I know,” replied Nick. “I just don’t like it, that’s all. I wish we didn’t have to put ourselves in danger like this.”  
  
“And you think I do?” asked Stephen, also getting to his feet. He picked up the rag Nick had discarded, cleaned himself up too, and then started to get dressed.  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“It’s necessary, Nick. We have to survive.”  
  
“I know that too,” said Nick. “We have to survive until we can get home.”  
  
“And that’s another thing,” continued Stephen, seizing on the topic. “Up there is where the anomalies are. You know none have opened down here.”  
  
“Hardly any have opened up there,” Nick pointed out. “What is it now? Three? Four? And all closed by the time we got anywhere near them anyway.”  
  
“Still, we have a better chance of getting home up there than we do down here,” Stephen said.  
  
Nick thought about ‘up there’ for a moment. The plateaus were dangerous places, riddled with future predators (or perhaps here, _in_ the future, they were just ‘predators’, Nick thought to himself) and giant insects that thought nothing of taking something as large as a human. It hadn’t been safe for them to stay up there permanently, something they’d been quick to learn. They’d had to retreat, down into the canyons and gullies, where, oddly, the creatures didn’t seem to want to follow. Occasionally they’d seen swarms of insects flying overhead, but they never came any lower than the heights of the plateaus. It was safer down here.  
  
But while it was safer, it was also a trap. What Stephen had said about the anomalies was true. For some reason, they also stuck only to the high places, appearing and disappearing in the ruined remains of what had once been human civilisation, before whatever unspecified apocalypse had torn the very fabric of the earth apart.  
  
Scavenging trips like the one they were planning were the only times they ever got anywhere the near the possibility of going to home, and so far ‘anywhere near’ hadn’t been very near at all.  
  
Still, they couldn’t give up hope. Stephen was right, Nick realised. A chance, however slim, however, dangerous, was better than no chance at all.  
  
Looking round, he realised that Stephen had left the shelter, and followed him outside. Stephen was checking the large container that held their rainwater supplies (Nick still vividly remembered the day when it had taken the both of them to drag that home), and Nick stepped up behind him and slipped his arms around Stephen’s waist, pressing a kiss to the skin of Stephen’s neck just above the collar of his own jumper.  
  
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m being grumpy this morning. I blame the sun.”  
  
Stephen laughed slightly, and twisted in Nick’s arms. “We’ll sort it after breakfast,” he promised. “Before we go.”  
  
“Before we go,” Nick agreed. He gave Stephen another quick kiss, and then laid his head on the other man’s shoulder, slightly ashamed of his sudden display of neediness, but not willing to give it up all the same.  
  
This was one of the positives of their situation, after all. He and Stephen had finally managed to put aside their differences, over Helen and over the anomaly project, and admit how they really felt about each other.  
  
And it had only taken (more) imminent danger and the (greater) threat of death every day to achieve it. And the need to depend utterly on each other, of course. Nick smiled wryly to himself.  
  
Nick allowed himself a few more seconds of clinging to Stephen, and then untangled himself quickly, just catching sight of the soft look on Stephen’s face before he ducked his head and turned away.  
  
“Right,” he said. “Time for breakfast.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
After breakfast (Stephen was right again – their supply of edible goods was running low, and tinned spaghetti wasn’t exactly Nick’s idea of an appetising way to start the day), Stephen made good on his promise and clambered up next to their shelter with pockets full of moss to push into the gaps in the roof that Nick directed him to from inside.  
  
The shelter itself was simply made, a lean-to made from branches braced up against a small cliff-face, lashed together with vines and, in some places, string that they’d managed to scavenge. It was rudimentary, despite the improvements that they’d gradually made to it during the months they’d been here, but it did the job. Although, Nick reflected, if the weather _was_ going to start getting worse as they presumably moved into autumn and then winter, they might need to take greater measures than simply stuffing some moss in a few cracks.  
  
But for now the moss would do. They could sort out the other things once they’d got this latest trip over and done with.  
  
“I think that’ll do for now,” Nick called out. “You’ve done the worst ones.” He heard Stephen clap his hands together to brush off the remains of the moss, and then jump down from the ledge he’d been standing on, and went outside to survey Stephen’s handwork from another angle.  
  
“Think you’ll be able to sleep better now?” Stephen asked cheekily, and Nick punched him lightly on the arm.  
  
“Shut up. You’ll be benefiting from it too. At least this way you’re less likely to have to deal with a grumpy me first thing in the morning.”  
  
“Fair point,” Stephen conceded. “A future predator is less scary than you in the mornings sometimes.”  
  
“Oi!” protested Nick, and then laughed ruefully. “Okay, I take your point.”  
  
“Positively terrifying, you are.”  
  
Nick rolled his eyes. “When you’ve quite finished taking the piss, are we going anywhere today or not?”  
  
“Suddenly so impatient,” said Stephen. “We just need to get some gear together, and then we can set off.”  
  
The ‘gear’ consisted of some ropes and bits that they’d managed to scrape together to assist them in climbing up and down to the plateaus, some canisters of water and dry, stale biscuits, a handgun that was their only weapon, and an anomaly detector.  
  
Nick worried about the detector sometimes. It was the only one they had, and although once they’d realised that the anomalies never opened in the canyons they’d taken to keeping it switched off unless they went up to the heights, one day it would run out of power, and then they’d really be stuck. They’d managed on one scavenging trip to find an old torch with some still working batteries inside it, but they couldn’t rely on being that lucky again. And besides, the torch itself was useful too – they couldn’t keep the batteries in reserve for just the detector.  
  
They each swung a rucksack on to their back – light and almost empty at the moment, the remaining space reserved for whatever they could find up top – and set off, Stephen carrying the climbing ‘equipment’, Nick the detector, and each their own supply of food and water, in case they got separated. God forbid.  
  
Stephen led the way, heading towards a particular up-thrust of land. It took Nick longer than it probably should have to realise that it was one they’d first found themselves on when they arrived here. It was also the largest one in the vicinity, with a wide plateau on the top containing a cluster of almost complete buildings and still mostly unobstructed streets.  
  
Nick remembered how eerie he’d found the place when they’d first explored it. Apart from the broken windows, rusting cars, and long grass forcing it’s way through concrete and between paving slabs, it could almost have been a normal town. Nick had expected any moment to round a corner and come face-to-face with someone out doing their shopping, or walking their dog.  
  
Instead, they’d come face-to-face with a future predator, and only narrowly escaped with their lives. That particular plateau had been swarming with the things, as well as the giant insects, forcing their emigration to the lowlands.  
  
They’d been back once or twice – being the biggest plateau with the most complete buildings also made it the best place to find supplies – but the danger had meant they’d also had to try other plateaus (although always the ones where they could still see the standing remains of buildings).  
  
But now Stephen was leading them back to this one, and Nick thought he could understand why. Their conversation earlier had infected both them with a renewal of their desire to get home, and this particular plateau, as well as being the most dangerous, was also the most likely place for anomalies to appear.  
  
They’d detected one on one of the other plateaus they’d visited, but three out of the four they’d picked up on had all opened in this particular spot. The actual anomaly they’d arrived through – diving through it in an attempt to lure one of the giant insects back to its own time from a warehouse at a racetrack – had so far not reopened, but they both seemed to recognise that, if they wanted to get home, this was where they had to go to try to achieve that.  
  
The scramble up to the plateau itself was something between a walk and climb. On one side – the side where the anomaly they’d arrived through was located, in fact – the drop to the canyon floor was sheer, and almost vertical. Nick vividly remembered stepping through the anomaly and realising exactly how close to the edge he was. He also remembered thinking that if they’d stepped through from the other direction, they would have found themselves experiencing a straight drop of several hundred feet, with almost certain death at the end of it.  
  
Nick had got better at this kind of physical activity the more plateaus they’d explored. But Stephen still had to help him over the more difficult bits, and with their climbing gear makeshift at best, with no real clamps or safety lines, Nick hadn’t been able to help wondering once or twice what would happen if he were to make a mistake and lose his footing. Probably they’d end up experiencing another one of those hundred foot drops, he reflected.  
  
But they hadn’t had any serious accidents yet, although there had been one or two close calls, and it seemed this morning wasn’t the morning for their luck to change, at least in that respect. They made it to the top of the up-thrust, and on to the plateau, out of breath and a bit tired (even Stephen was breathing hard, Nick was somewhat maliciously pleased to notice), but in one piece.  
  
“So, where shall we look first?” Nick asked, when they’d recovered a little.  
  
“Well,” said Stephen, “we’ve explored all the buildings closest to this route down, so we’re going to need to move on to some of the ones further away if we want to find anything useful.”  
  
He was looking at the buildings in front of them as he spoke, as indeed as he had been since they’d hauled themselves up on to the flat ground, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that might pose a threat. Nick thought once again how lucky he was to be stuck here with Stephen. He wouldn’t have lasted a day on his own.  
  
“That’ll be dangerous,” Nick commented, knowing that Stephen would have recognised this, but needing to say it anyway. “We’ll be further away from our escape route should anything attack us.”  
  
“True,” Stephen replied, not calling Nick on his having stated the bloody obvious. “But the buildings are also more intact further over. It looks as if there was more ground slippage here, hence the easier route up. And that’s affected the buildings. You can see they’re more ruined on this side.”  
  
It was true, and Nick had noticed it before, the previous times they’d been up here. However, that didn’t make what _he_ was saying any _less_ true. He decided not to labour the point. Stephen was right – again – they’d probably exhausted any supplies these closer buildings had to offer. They had to look somewhere new.  
  
“Come on.” Stephen stood up, and then held out a hand to haul Nick upright too. “Follow me.”  
  
Quietly, they made their way down one of the decaying streets, keeping as close to the centre of it as they could, away from the dark, gaping doorways and windows that could be hiding all sorts of dangerous things.  
  
It was eerily quiet, and Nick was once again struck by how almost-normal things looked, as if people had been going about their daily business quite happily right up until the moment the disaster – whatever it was – struck.  
  
They circumnavigated a small cluster of rusting car hulks, and then Stephen silently gestured to their left, towards a building with a large, open doorway (Nick could see the remains of hinges attached to the brick surround – the doors themselves had obviously rotted away long ago) and two large picture windows, one on each side of the door.  
  
Nick immediately realised what he was getting at. The doorway and windows would let a lot of light into the interior of the building, making it both easier to search it, and harder for anything threatening to hide in the shadows. There was nowhere they could look that would be completely safe, but this was better than nothing.  
  
Cautiously, they approached the open door, and then Stephen made another gesture, indicating to Nick to wait for moment, and stepped inside.  
  
There was a horrible twenty seconds that felt like twenty minutes, and then Stephen reappeared, nodding and inviting Nick in.  
  
Inside, there were another couple of rusting cars, and these, coupled with the group outside, and the large pit in the centre of the floor, clued Nick in to the previous use of the building. It had obviously been a mechanic’s garage.  
  
Quietly, Nick cleared his throat, and then when Stephen looked round, inclined his head towards the pit and raised his eyebrows in question.  
  
“Empty,” Stephen mouthed back, and Nick pulled an expression of relief. He hadn’t liked to think that there might be something hiding in there, waiting to jump out at them.  
  
They skirted the pit, and made their way over to the corner of the garage, where there was a desk, and an alcove with some shelves and cupboards in it.  
  
Nick rooted through the canisters on one of the shelves, while Stephen looked swiftly through the cupboard. In one canister he found some instant coffee, all melded together into one solid lump and smelling of absolutely nothing, and in another he found something that had apparently been teabags in a former life, but was now just grey dust that puffed up into his face when he opened the canister.  
  
He jerked his head back as the powder went up his nose, and then immediately felt the tickling that indicated a sneeze was on his way. He couldn’t hold it back, and desperately clapped his hands over his face. He managed to muffle the sound a little, but it still sounded dangerously loud in the otherwise quiet garage.  
  
Stephen looked at him in alarm, and they both held their breath for what felt like several minutes, waiting for something to happen.  
  
But nothing did, and after a while they cautiously went on with their search, Nick joining Stephen in raiding the cupboards and keeping well away from the rest of the canisters.  
  
After a few more minutes they’d checked all the cupboards, and took the results of their search over to the desk to examine them more closely.  
  
They’d managed to gather together a few rusting but intact tins of soup, whose contents would hopefully still be edible, more of the tinned spaghetti, ditto, and a few packets of still sealed biscuits, which were a bit crumbly, and undoubtedly stale, but again would hopefully be eatable.  
  
It wasn’t a bad collection for only the first place they’d searched, and satisfied, they stowed their spoils in their rucksacks, taking care to arrange them so the tins didn’t rattle together as they walked. Nick’s rucksack felt significantly heavier as he swung it back on to his shoulder again, and he tried to make himself feel better by thinking about how _much_ heavier it would be later, when they’d hopefully found even more supplies. It was a cold comfort.  
  
“Onwards and upwards,” Stephen whispered, smiling encouragingly at Nick.  
  
Nick smiled back, and together they walked back to the open door of the garage, peering carefully out, and then left the building.  
  
But they hadn’t taken more than a few steps when there was a sudden creaking sound from behind the cluster of cars they’d passed before, as if something had knocked against one of them and set it rocking on its rusting chassis. They both froze in alarm, staring at the spot where the sound had seemed to come from.  
  
There was a moment of utter stillness, and then another creaking noise, and a future predator jumped lightly up on to the roof of one of the cars.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Stephen stared at the future predator, and the future predator stared right back. Beside him, he could hear that Nick’s breathing had sped up with the appearance of the creature, but he didn’t dare turn his head to check on his companion properly. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the danger that was now in front of them.  
  
Nobody moved for several long moments, until it became apparent that the predator wasn’t _going_ to move. It didn’t seem particularly inclined to leap at them and disembowel them, or rip their throats out. It seemed perfectly content just to watch them.  
  
“Move,” said Stephen, quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “Slowly and carefully. That way, down the street.”  
  
The direction he inclined his head in was unknown territory, but to go back the way they’d come would take them far to close to the predator, and even though it appeared calm at the moment, there was no way Stephen was going any closer to it.  
  
He sensed rather than saw Nick nod, and then heard Nick’s footfalls start as the other man moved off down the street.  
  
Stephen followed, never taking his eyes off the future predator, and as he moved he reached carefully under the hem of his jumper and extracted the handgun from the waistband of his jeans.  
  
He aimed it at the predator, but he didn’t fire. The clip was full, but he wasn’t going to waste ammunition. They’d used far to much of the little they’d had during their first few days here, fighting off predators like this one, and giant bugs that were enough to give anyone nightmares.  
  
He heard Nick hesitate, and muttered “Keep going” at him, trusting him to warn Stephen of any obstacles in their path that he, with his eyes always behind them, might not notice.  
  
They’d gone no more than thirty metres when a second future predator hopped up on to the car next to the first one.  
  
 _Double trouble_ , Stephen thought inanely to himself. Then he caught a movement in the corner of vision, and couldn’t help flicking his eyes towards it. A third predator was clinging to the brickwork (how did they do that, he wondered?) right above the doorway of the garage they’d just exited, and it was staring at them just like the other two were. _The terrible trio._  
  
 _Ping._  
  
The sound was muffled, and for a second he couldn’t work out what it was.  
  
 _Ping._  
  
Then Nick was swinging his rucksack off his shoulder again, trying to keep moving even as he pulled it open and dug around for the anomaly detector.  
  
 _Ping._  
  
“Where’s the anomaly?” Stephen whispered, still not turning his head.  
  
“Close by,” Nick replied. “Not far away at all.”  
  
Then it happened. As if they’d been waiting for some kind of signal (did they know the anomaly had appeared?), all three future predators launched themselves forward, towards the two men.  
  
“Run!” Stephen yelled. He fired two shots, more in warning that in any real hope of doing damage, and then turned and raced after Nick, who was trying to watch both the detector and where he was putting his feet at the same time.  
  
Stephen caught him by the elbow and dragged him along, casting another look back over his shoulder. What he saw chilled his blood. The predators had been joined by three more, and they were bearing down on them. Fast.  
  
They need somewhere to hide. _Now._  
  
“Stephen, Stephen, it’s this way,” Nick was saying, pulling against Stephen’s grip.  
  
Stephen realised they’d reached a t-junction at the end of the street, and Nick was trying to turn to the right, obviously following the directions given by the detector. He looked swiftly to the left, and then the way Nick wanted to go, saw no difference between them, and allowed himself to be pulled, blindly firing three more shots behind them.  
  
 _Stupid, stupid, you’re wasting ammo._  
  
But he heard a screech behind them, as if of pain, and knew he’d hit something. Whether it would be enough to reduce the number of pursuers, he had no idea, however.  
  
“In here! Stephen, it’s in _here!_ ”  
  
Nick had stopped by a small door, and was desperately pushing at it, trying to make it open. Stephen wanted to help, but someone had to stand as the last line of defence. Trusting that Nick would succeed with the door, he turned his back and squared up to the five (he had taken one down, after all) approaching future predators.  
  
Behind him he could hear Nick swearing, and the thumps as Nick threw himself against the door, but he tried to ignore that as he carefully lined up his shots. The handgun wasn’t meant for precision or distance work, but that hardly mattered now. The future predators were getting closer by the second, and even with their almost supernatural ability to dodge bullets, he knew he couldn’t miss.  
  
He fired at the closest one – missed the head but got the shoulder, enough to make it pause – and then at the next – got it this time, down it went – and then at the first again.  
  
But he knew with sick certainty that there wasn’t going to be enough time – or ammunition – to get them all before they were on them, and he spared a brief thought for his companion.  
  
 _I’m sorry, Nick, I’m so sorry._  
  
Then hands were grabbing him, pulling him backwards through the doorway, and the door was slammed behind them. There was a shriek of rage from outside, as the predators were deprived of their prey.  
  
“That’s not going to hold them for long,” Nick said. “I don’t think we have another choice.”  
  
He nodded towards the anomaly that was spinning gently in the air not two metres away, and Stephen wondered how he hadn’t noticed it immediately.  
  
“I suppose not,” he replied. “But what if they follow us?”  
  
“How about we cross that bridge when we come to it?”  
  
And then Nick was grinning, and Stephen was grinning back. They had no idea where the anomaly led, whether it was home, or somewhere else. But right now, it couldn’t be any worse than here.  
  
“After you,” Stephen said, making a sweeping gesture towards the anomaly.  
  
Nick laughed, nodded, and then stepped into the sparkling shards of light. Stephen followed just as the predators started battering against the door outside.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
They found themselves in an utterly nondescript room. The light from the anomaly showed them four plain grey walls and a plain grey door in front of them. There was nothing to tell them where they were, or what they might find if they opened the door.  
  
“Where are we?” Nick asked. “Is this home?”  
  
“Not a clue,” Stephen replied. “But we’re not going to find out by just standing here.”  
  
He took a couple of steps towards the door, but then had to stop as the anomaly suddenly winked out of existence, plunging them into darkness.  
  
“Well, at least we can’t be followed now,” said Nick, and Stephen nodded, even though he knew Nick couldn’t see him, and blundered his way the rest of the distance to the door.  
  
However, when his hand was on the door handle, he hesitated, wondering if it would be locked, and they’d find themselves trapped. _I’d keep it locked, if it were me_ , he thought. _Always best to keep an anomaly site secure._ He didn’t know why, but something was telling him that this wasn’t just a random anomaly, that people knew about it, and that they’d be very interested in its reappearance here.  
  
He took a breath, and turned the handle. To his surprise, it gave easily under his hand, and he pulled the door towards him.  
  
“Open sesame,” he said, and stepped through the doorway, Nick following close behind.  
  
They found themselves in a long corridor, lit by the dimmest of emergency lighting, and as featureless as the room they’d just left.  
  
“Where are we?” Nick asked again. “What is this place?”  
  
“Let’s find out,” Stephen said. Choosing at random, he turned right (right had worked for them last time, he figured) and headed off down the corridor.  
  
It quickly became apparent to them that this place (‘facility’ was the word Stephen’s mind supplied) was completely abandoned. Pushing through a pair of double doors at the end of the first corridor, they found a second corridor, lit with the same dim lighting as the first, and painted the same bland grey colour. There was no noise, and as far as they walked, they didn’t see a single other human being.  
  
“This place is weird,” Nick said, almost whispering although there was really no need to. “What do you suppose went on here?”  
  
“It looks like some kind of scientific laboratory,” Stephen replied. He’d stopped by a large plate glass window, the first feature to break the monotony of the walls apart from the odd door (all of which _had_ been locked, unlike the first one). On the other side of the glass was a room that looked almost like an operating theatre. There was a large gurney in the middle of the floor, with a big lamp on a hinged arm hovering over it (switched off, needless to say). But set into the walls were panels of instruments and screens – something Stephen had never seen in a standard medical facility before.  
  
“Do you think they were studying the anomalies?” said Nick. “And the creatures?”  
  
“I think they were.”  
  
“So this is what? Another ARC?”  
  
“No.” Stephen’s answer was short. Something about this place was making his skin crawl, and right now he wanted to get out as soon as he could.  
  
They walked away from the operating theatre, continuing on, looking for a way out, or even something that might tell them where they were. And it wasn’t long before they turned a corner to find themselves confronted by another door. This one was made of glass, however, and it was accompanied by an ominously glowing security panel on the wall next to it – the first sign of power they’d seen apart from the emergency lighting.  
  
“I think we’ve found the exit,” Stephen said.  
  
“Looks like they don’t want people getting out,” Nick commented.  
  
“Or in,” Stephen countered.  
  
“So how are _we_ going to get out?” Nick asked.  
  
“Like this,” said Stephen. “You might want to cover your ears.” He pulled out the gun again and shot twice at the glass door. The noise was deafening in the enclosed space, but it did the job. The glass held on for a moment longer, a spiderweb of cracks covering its surface, before it suddenly gave way, collapsing to the floor with a crash.  
  
“Come on,” said Stephen. He stepped carefully through the hole, avoiding the remaining shards of glass clinging to the frame, and then looked around.  
  
They were in a large foyer area. The space was open to the height of two storeys, with floor to ceiling windows giving them a view of an empty car park outside. In the middle of the foyer a wide staircase led up to a suspended walkway that reached back into the depths of the building. The place was stark – all white and glass and chrome – and once again it was completely empty.  
  
Well, almost.  
  
There was a swishing sound, and Stephen turned to see the glass doors opposite the bottom of the staircase – the ones that led to the outside world – gliding open to admit four people.  
  
They were all holding guns.


	2. Chapter 2

Nick recognised three of the four people standing in front of him instantly. What he didn’t recognise was the suspicion on Becker and Abby’s faces, and the almost-fear on Connor’s  
  
Connor was the only one of the party who wasn’t pointing his weapon at Nick and Stephen. Instead, his gun was dangling limply from his hand as he stared. The other three, however…well, Nick and Stephen were very much in their sights. Nick could understand that reaction from Becker – the guy was a soldier, after all, trained to react that way. He could even sort of understand the fourth person’s – a man that Nick didn’t recognise – reasons. If he was unfamiliar to Nick, it stood to reason that Nick would be unfamiliar to him. He was taking precautions – that was logical.  
  
But Abby… Abby’s reaction stung, just a little.  
  
No one looked particularly happy to see the returning wanderers.  
  
“Put the gun down.” The unfamiliar man’s voice had a strong Irish lilt to it, and from his position at the front and centre of the group, he was obviously now the team leader.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Stephen bend slowly and put his gun on the floor, and then kick it a little way from him without being asked.  
  
The man nodded. “Thank you. Now, I think we’d all better…”  
  
“Professor, is it really you?” Connor blurted suddenly.  
  
“Of course it’s me,” Nick replied. “And Stephen,” he added. He was puzzled. Connor sill looked almost afraid of them, and he couldn’t understand why. Yes, they’d been gone for almost a year, but there was no reason to be frightened, surely? It wasn’t like they’d come back from the dead or anything.  
  
Nick felt the hairs on the back of his neck slowly stand on end.  
  
“What’s going on here?” he asked, as calmly as he could.  
  
The man in charge – who still hadn’t actually introduced himself, Nick noticed – replied. “The detector picked up an anomaly in this facility – it’s a location the ARC keeps an eye on, so we were able to get here fairly quickly. But the first thing we found when we arrived was you.”  
  
“We came through the anomaly,” said Stephen.  
  
“Where from?” Connor asked quickly.  
  
“The future,” said Nick. “But you know where we were – you know where the anomaly we got stuck through went.”  
  
“What?” It was the first time Abby had spoken, and the single word question was sharp.  
  
“About a year ago,” Nick said, slowly and carefully, suddenly feeling like he was explaining himself to a group of his first year students. “Stephen and I went through an anomaly at a racetrack that led to an apocalyptic future. It closed behind us and we got stuck. We’ve been surviving there ever since.”  
  
“But that was…” Connor began.  
  
“Be quiet, Connor,” ordered the team leader. Then he looked at Nick and Stephen. “I think we’d better take you back to the ARC,” he continued. “There are a few things that need clearing up.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
It was obvious the moment they pulled up outside that the ARC itself was one of the things that needed explaining.  
  
It was…different. It was bigger. And there was more glass, more metal, more…well, just more.  
  
In fact, it reminded Nick of one of those purpose-built business parks – the ones that didn’t make it at all obvious what kind of business was actually _done_ there.  
  
Matt Anderson – the guy had finally introduced himself during the journey here – caught Nick and Stephen’s expressions of surprise, but limited his own reaction to a slight tilt of his head. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you inside.”  
  
The differences continued once they were through the doors. Although on the outside the place looked bigger than the ARC they remembered, on the inside it somehow felt smaller. There were a lot of longer, narrow, dimly lit corridors, and the control centre, when they reached it, was nothing like the open, atrium-like space of the other ARC. Instead it had a low ceiling, and was filled with benches and tables, leaving only narrow passageways of space through to the other end, where Nick could see what was apparently the anomaly detector.  
  
He blinked. Was the technician there wearing a _mini-skirt?_  
  
“Well, well, the prodigal professor and his prodigal assistant return. I suppose you’ll be expecting me to roll out the red carpet?”  
  
Nick turned to see James Lester emerging from what was presumably his office (another difference there – while both versions had been glass-walled, the old one had always reminded Nick of an eyrie, where their boss could survey them from on high. This one reminded him more of a fish bowl. He bet Lester hated it.).  
  
“Hello, Lester,” he said dryly, suddenly ridiculously glad that some things, it seemed, _never_ changed. “Nice to see you too.”  
  
“I’m still trying to decide if the feeling is mutual,” Lester replied, with a curl of his lip.  
  
But something about the bureaucrat’s effort seemed half-hearted at best, and Nick realised that, in his own way, Lester was as shocked to see them as the others had been.  
  
“Look, reunions are all very well, but is anyone actually going to tell us what’s going _on_ here?” Stephen asked suddenly.  
  
“I’m afraid you’re making one rather large assumption there, Mr. Hart,” said Lester.  
  
“And what is that?”  
  
“That _we_ actually know what _is_ going on,” replied Lester. He turned to Matt Anderson. “Matt, please could you and Captain Becker make our guests comfortable in one of the conference rooms.” His lips curled again. “And perhaps they might like to avail themselves of our facilities first? I’m sure after…” He looked at Nick enquiringly.  
  
“Nearly a year,” Nick supplied.  
  
“…nearly a year in the future they’d both welcome a proper shower.”  
  
 _Translation: we stink_ , Nick thought wryly, and nearly smiled. He was only surprised that Connor had been able to refrain from mentioning it when they were all in the car together.  
  
Then again… He looked over to where Connor and Abby were standing, both looking as if they thought they were going to wake up any second. Even Captain Becker, standing behind them, looked a little flummoxed by events, and he was normally unflappable.  
  
Then Nick realised something.  
  
“Hang on a minute,” he said. “Where’s Jenny? Where’s Jenny Lewis?”  
  
“Ms. Lewis no longer works for the ARC,” said Lester smoothly.  
  
“What? Is she okay? What happened to her?”  
  
“She is perfectly fine. She merely decided that the anomaly project was no longer something she wished to devote her time to.”  
  
“It happened after…” Connor began, and then subsided with a yelp as Abby very obviously trod on his foot.  
  
“After what?” Stephen said suspiciously, getting there before Nick.  
  
“That is something we will discuss later,” said Lester. “Now, Matt, Becker, if you please?” He gestured towards Nick and Stephen. “I need to have a little chat with Connor and Abby. In _private_.”  
  
Nick allowed himself to be led away, Stephen walking beside him, Matt in front, and Becker behind. Just before they left the control room, he looked over his shoulder to see Connor and Abby following Lester into his office. Abby looked worried, and Connor was already talking a mile a minute.  
  
But Nick was already too far away to hear what he was saying.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
“So, what do you think’s going on here, then?” Stephen asked, dropping into a chair next to Nick.  
  
“I have no idea,” replied Nick, pinching the bridge of his nose and scrunching up his face. “And what’s more, I don’t think Lester was lying. I don’t think _they_ know what’s going on either.”  
  
Stephen caught hold of the hand that Nick had raised to his face and squeezed it gently. “One thing I _do_ know,” he said. “This _isn’t_ home. Or, at least, not our version of it.”  
  
“I know,” Nick agreed. Then he tried a smile. “Although I do like their version of showers.”  
  
It felt fantastic to be properly clean again, for the first time in months. Nick had wanted to stay under the pounding hot spray of the ARC shower forever – not least because while he was in there, he could pretend that things weren’t getting weirder by the second out _here_.  
  
“Me too.” Stephen smiled faintly back. “And I’m quite impressed with their version of a conference room too.”  
  
Nick knew what he meant. It seemed they’d both expected ‘conference room’ to be a polite euphemism for ‘cell’ (and knowing Lester, that wasn’t totally out of the question). But they _were_ actually in a conference room, with a large table, comfortable seats, and a water cooler in the corner. There was even a potted plant by the door, although Nick wasn’t sure how it was surviving, given that, despite all the glass on the outside of the building, no natural light appeared to be allowed in make it inside.  
  
There was one cell-like aspect to this room, though. And that was that Becker was currently standing guard outside the door. He’d given them both an apologetic, if still slightly suspicious, look as he’d closed the door on them, but that didn’t change the fact that he was there.  
  
Although, perhaps somewhat oddly, Nick didn’t really mind. In one way, having a guard out there made him feel safe. No one had a clue what was going on, including them – Becker’s solid presence was actually somewhat reassuring, even if he was there to keep them from getting out rather than to stop anyone else getting in.  
  
That point was rather proved when, a moment later, the door opened and Lester entered the room, followed by the rest of the team. He sat down on the opposite side of the conference table to Nick and Stephen, Matt taking a seat to his right, and Connor and Abby to his left. Nick noticed that Becker had entered the room too, and was now standing just inside the door.  
  
Lester rested his hands on the tabletop, fingers laced together, and looked straight at Nick.  
  
“I’m not going to beat around the bush, gentlemen,” he said. “We don’t know how you have come to be here, but I can tell you what we _do_ know. And that is that, approximately twenty-one months ago Stephen Hart was killed by a roomful of predators at a secret base run by my erstwhile assistant Oliver Leek and Helen Cutter. Then, three months later, Professor Nick Cutter was shot and killed by that same Helen Cutter in the old ARC facility, shortly after invading it with an army of clones, and attempting to blow the place up with the help of a clone of her husband.”  
  
Nick frowned. Lester’s voice suddenly seemed to be coming from very far away.  
  
“You are both dead, gentlemen. Therefore your presence here is nothing short of a…miracle.” Lester looked rather as if that wasn’t his first choice of words.  
  
“But those things happened to us too,” Stephen said. “Not the dying part, obviously,” he clarified quickly. “But those events happened. I _did_ sustain some injuries at Leek’s base, but I recovered. And Helen…” He took a deep breath. “Helen did invade the ARC with a bunch of clones and try to kill Nick. But as you can see, she didn’t succeed.”  
  
“Could they be from a…a parallel timeline or something?” Abby said. She sounded like she wasn’t quite sure exactly what she was asking.  
  
“Connor?” Lester looked at the young man.  
  
“Well, parallel timelines have been _theorised_ about,” said Connor, sounding like he was reciting from a script. “But no one’s ever actually been able to prove their existence. The anomalies seem to be able to allow us to change what happens in _this_ timeline – that’s what Helen’s plans for Site 333 were about – but we’ve seen no evidence that they allow travel between parallel timelines. If parallel timelines even exist.”  
  
“Wait a minute.” Nick spoke, feeling like he was dredging up the words from a great depth. “What did you say just then? About Helen’s plans for Site 333?”  
  
“It seems Helen had a plan to wipe out the whole of humanity by attempting to kill the first family of hominids,” replied Lester. “Our continuing presence here would seem to suggest that she failed.”  
  
“Danny Quinn must have stopped her,” said Matt.  
  
“Who’s Danny Quinn?” asked Stephen, at the same time as Nick said, “She wanted to wipe out _humanity?_ Why?”  
  
“It seems she though the Earth would be better off,” said Lester dryly. “As for Danny Quinn…”  
  
“You don’t know who Danny is?” said Connor, looking at Nick. “Okay, so our Professor Cutter never met him, but he did _know_ about him. Before he…”  
  
“Died,” finished Nick bluntly.  
  
“Yeah,” said Connor.  
  
“Danny Quinn was the team leader after Professor Cutter and before me,” said Matt. “He, Connor, and Abby went through the anomaly at the racetrack to try and catch up with Helen in the future after she forced Christine Johnson through the anomaly at the facility where we found you.”  
  
“Wait, what?” questioned Stephen. “Christine Johnson?”  
  
“Don’t tell me, you don’t know who she is either,” said Lester. “Lucky you. Christine was a political rival of mine. She set up shop, with her own pet anomaly, in the facility where Matt and the others found you today. Helen took advantage of the presence of that anomaly after abducting Christine from the old ARC. Christine was killed by a future predator.”  
  
“Anyway,” interrupted Connor. “We found Helen in the future, then followed her to the cretaceous. Danny then followed her again through another anomaly, but Abby and I ended up stuck for a year…”  
  
“You were stuck for a year?” asked Nick incredulously, but before anyone else could say anything, Lester rapped sharply on the table.  
  
“Thank you, everyone. There will be quite enough time for catching up later. Can we get back to the point, please?”  
  
There was a moment of silence, and then Stephen shrugged. “In any case, there was no Danny Quinn, and no Christine Johnson where we come from,” he said. “Wherever that _is_.”  
  
“Could they be a result of another change in this timeline?” Matt asked Connor. “Could something have happened to make them not dead?”  
  
“But if they never died, we’d remember that,” replied Connor. “Chronologically, this anomaly at the racetrack they disappeared through was after the events that should have killed them. So if something had happened to change the timeline – presumably around the time Stephen should have died – we’d remember everything after that as being what actually happened. We wouldn’t still think they’d died.”  
  
“So where _have_ they come from, then?” said Abby.  
  
“Excuse me, but _they_ are sitting right here,” said Stephen sharply, and then sighed when Abby flinched. “Sorry, but this is just as weird for us as for you.”  
  
Nick resisted the urge to just close his eyes and pretend that none of this was happening. He’d thought getting back to the present would be the best thing that could happen to him and Stephen. Now, absurdly, he was almost wishing that they were back in the future, as dangerous as it had been. Things had seemed simpler there.  
  
“I think we’d better wrap this up for now,” Lester said suddenly. “We’re getting nowhere fast.” He looked at Nick and Stephen. “I’m afraid we can’t allow either of you to leave the ARC until we understand what’s going on here. And I’m going to have to insist you both undergo a full battery of medical tests. Perhaps they will be able to shed some light on things.”  
  
Nick nodded tiredly. He wasn’t surprised by Lester’s precautions. And he wanted to know what was going on as much as anybody.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Stephen was alone in the examination room when the door opened and Abby slipped through it. She entered confidently enough, but seemed to falter when she actually saw Stephen, hovering just inside the room as the door closed behind her.  
  
“Oh, do you mind?” she asked.  
  
“Not at all.” Stephen gestured in invitation. It was actually nice to see a friendly face, now that he’d been separated from Nick. Even if said face didn’t appear to have quite decided whether it was feeling friendly or not.  
  
“Are you allowed to be fraternising with the recently resurrected?” he asked, as Abby sat down. His attempt to lighten the mood fell a bit flat as she frowned at him.  
  
“You’re not prisoners, you know,” Abby said.  
  
“Oh really?” Stephen raised an eyebrow, and looked towards the door, where a soldier (not Becker this time) could be seen through the glass panel standing guard in the corridor.  
  
“That’s just a precaution,” said Abby defensively. “We’re still not sure exactly where you’ve come from, or even who you _are_ , after all.”  
  
Stephen sighed. “Relax, Abby, I know,” he said. “Lester’s just being careful. I’d do the same. Let’s face it, right now Nick and I aren’t exactly sure who _you_ are either. This isn’t quite the homecoming we expected.”  
  
“Yeah, about that…” said Abby. She shifted in her seat a little. “I suppose I just wanted to say…well, hello, really. Since I haven’t had a chance to say it yet.”  
  
She smiled, for the first time since all this had started, and Stephen smiled back.  
  
“Hello,” he said.  
  
“Hello.”  
  
“It _is_ good to see you, Stephen,” Abby said earnestly. “Even under these extremely weird circumstances.”  
  
“It’s good to see you too, Abby.”  
  
At that moment, the door opened to admit someone else into the room. The man seemed a little surprised to find Abby there, but recovered himself quickly.  
  
“Mr. Hart, hello. My name is Dr. Sexton. I’ll be examining you.”  
  
“Stephen,” said Stephen.  
  
“Sorry?” Sexton blinked at him.  
  
“My name is Stephen. You may as well call me that.”  
  
“Okay.” Sexton nodded. “Stephen it is then.” He smiled, and instantly looked less forbidding. With his black hair, sharp features, and piercing eyes he projected at rather stern demeanour, but his smile softened everything a little.  
  
“I’ll leave,” said Abby quickly, rising from her chair.  
  
“You can stay if you want,” Stephen said, equally quickly. He cast a swift look at Sexton. “That is, if it’s okay with you.”  
  
“No problem here,” the doctor said. “Miss Maitland is welcome to stay, if it would make you feel more comfortable.  
  
 _I think it would_ , thought Stephen, although he didn’t say it.  
  
Abby smiled at him again, and re-seated herself, trying to keep out of Sexton’s way.  
  
“Right, Stephen, if you could take your top off and then hop up on the gurney, I just want to give you a quick check over, and then I’ll need to start taking some samples. Blood, skin, urine, that kind of thing.”  
  
“Fine,” replied Stephen, stripping his top off and sitting on the edge of the gurney as instructed. He noticed that Abby was averting her eyes, and suppressed a smile.  
  
Sexton gave his torso a quick once-over, and then made a somewhat questioning noise.  
  
“Hmmmm…”  
  
“What is it?” Stephen asked.  
  
“Well, while there is some evidence of prior injuries on you, there’s not nearly as much as I would have expected to see.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“So far I’ve noticed this scar here…” Sexton indicated a mark about two inches long on the outside of Stephen’s left forearm.  
  
“Yes, I cut myself on a jagged edge of broken glass while we were exploring an abandoned building,” Stephen said. “Must be several months ago now. I was damn lucky it didn’t get infected.”  
  
“And you appear to have scraped the skin on your right elbow pretty badly quite recently.”  
  
“Today, in fact,” Stephen told him. “While we were climbing up to the plateau.”  
  
“Hmmmm…” said Dr. Sexton again. “And that’s it?”  
  
“That’s it?” questioned Stephen, confused.  
  
“I believe that you have experienced some of the same things as the Stephen Hart previously known here, yes? You were, in fact, trapped in a room with several very dangerous predators when you infiltrated Oliver Leek’s secret base. Dangerous predators that did actually attack you?”  
  
“That’s right,” replied Stephen. He repressed a shudder as the memories threatened to surface. “I try not to think about it too much.”  
  
“In that case, you should have scars as a result of that attack, as the other Stephen did. But you have none.”  
  
“What? But that can’t be right!”  
  
Stephen looked down at himself. There was the scar on his arm, where he’d cut himself. And there was the sore patch on his elbow, where he’d scraped it. But that was it.  
  
“What’s going on? I don’t understand this!”  
  
“What about the arthropleurid scar?” said Abby suddenly. “Does he have that?” She looked at Stephen. “That happened to you too, right? Getting stung by the giant centipede in the Underground.”  
  
“Yes,” Stephen confirmed. “It did.”  
  
“That’s not there, either,” Sexton said, examining the skin of Stephen’s left shoulder.  
  
“But…but…I should _have_ those scars,” Stephen protested. “Where are they? What’s happening?”  
  
Sexton took a step back from Stephen. “I’m not sure,” he said, his voice serious. “But I think I need to start my tests. Right away.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” said Stephen through the darkness.  
  
“Neither do I,” replied Nick’s voice.  
  
“I _remember_ those things happening to me,” continued Stephen. “For god’s sake, I try to forget them every day! So why don’t I have any of scars I should have? And why have I never noticed that I don’t have them?”  
  
“I don’t know,” said Nick.  
  
Stephen shifted miserably on the small bunk, suddenly wishing that Nick wasn’t quite so far away. The room was a small one, but the gulf between Stephen’s bunk and Nick’s suddenly felt enormous. They’d slept curled against each other for months, and Stephen was finding he couldn’t settle without the solid warmth of Nick’s body against him.  
  
“It’s not just you, either,” said Nick, although he’d already told Stephen this. “What about my gunshot scar, where Helen tried to shoot me? That’s gone too. And I was equally oblivious to the fact.”  
  
“Do you think they know what’s going on?” Stephen asked.  
  
“I think they’re trying to find out,” Nick replied sensibly. There was a moment of silence, and then he spoke again. “Oh, bugger this.”  
  
There was a series of noises, and through the gloom Stephen could make out Nick standing up. Then there was a sudden screech, as if something was scraping across the floor, and Stephen realised that Nick was pulling his bunk across so it was next to Stephen’s.  
  
Stephen’s eyes went to where he knew the door was. Again, the bunkroom wasn’t a cell, but also again, there was a soldier standing guard. Stephen expected said soldier to appear any moment and start reprimanding them for moving the furniture around.  
  
But no one came in, and after a certain amount of pushing and shoving, Nick managed to get his bunk pushed up against Stephen’s, and then flopped down on to it again.  
  
Stephen immediately rolled on to his side, his hands reaching for, and finding, Nick. He didn’t care how needy this made him look – right now he just needed something familiar. Something that didn’t make him feel like his world was spinning out of control.  
  
He wrapped himself around Nick, ignoring the fact that he was partially lying on the join between the two bunks. They’d always done better together, even when they were fighting, or not speaking. And he hoped this time wouldn’t be any different.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Five days of limbo, several more rounds of tests, and numerous discussions with Lester, Matt, and Connor later, Nick was ready to scream.  
  
Lester was still claiming that they weren’t ‘prisoners’, as such, although that didn’t change the fact that their movement around this new ARC was heavily restricted – they were only allowed in their guest quarters, the infirmary, the conference room, and, on occasion, Lester’s office (and even then they weren’t allowed anywhere near the rest of the control centre, or the anomaly detector). It also didn’t change the fact that Becker or one of his men were always lurking nearby, and while they were all friendly enough, they were still clearly on guard duty.  
  
No one seemed to have a clue what to do with them, or indeed be able to work out where they’d come from, Nick and Stephen included. Connor, naturally, had posited several theories, ranging from the vaguely sensible to things that sounded like they belonged in _Star Trek_ or something similar.  
  
But in reality, no one had any answers yet, and Nick was getting more frustrated by the day.  
  
The only good thing about all this was that he and Stephen hadn’t been separated. Nick wasn’t sure what he’d have done without Stephen there, and he was pretty sure that Stephen felt the same way about him. It had been just the two of them, on their own, for so long that they relied on each other absolutely.  
  
“You’re pacing again,” Stephen commented, from the armchair in one corner of their quarters.  
  
Nick stopped and glared at him. “The only reason you aren’t is because there isn’t room for both of us to do it in here,” he retorted.  
  
Stephen looked like he was about to snap something back, but then his shoulders slumped and he nodded ruefully. “Touché,” he said. But he nonetheless stood up and planted himself in Nick’s way, putting his hands on Nick’s shoulders as Nick came to a halt in front of him. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to stop. You’re driving yourself nuts, and more importantly, you’re driving _me_ nuts.” He grinned lopsidedly, and Nick huffed out a short laugh.  
  
“All right, sorry. But for the record, it’s the _situation_ that’s driving me nuts. No one’s telling us anything, and everyone keeps looking at us like we shouldn’t bloody exist!”  
  
“Well, we do exist, so they can all just sod off,” Stephen replied. “Now, sit down, you need to relax.”  
  
He nudged Nick into the armchair he’d vacated, and then slid round behind it, putting his hands back on Nick’s shoulders and starting to massage them. “You’re as tight as a bowstring,” he continued. “Winding yourself up like this isn’t going to help anything.”  
  
Nick let out a contented murmur as Stephen’s fingers worked at the knots in his shoulders and neck. It felt good. He tried to remember whether he’d kissed Stephen that day, and realised that he hadn’t. Well, that needed to be remedied right now.  
  
“Hi guys, I’ve got some news for you. Lester…oops, sorry!”  
  
Talking before he’d even made it through the open door, Connor halted abruptly and turned pink as he realised he was interrupting something.  
  
Nick heard Stephen chuckle behind him, and tried very hard not to turn pink himself as he smiled at Connor. “Don’t worry, lad. What does Lester want?”  
  
“He wants to talk to you. Dr. Sexton thinks he’s found something in your test results.”  
  
“What?” Stephen asked.  
  
Connor looked uncomfortable suddenly. “Um, I think I’d better let them tell you,” he said. “I’ve just been sent to fetch you.”  
  
Something strange (well, stranger than normal, anyway) was going on, Nick was suddenly sure of it. He stood up, Stephen’s hands sliding from his shoulders. “We’re coming,” he said. “Lead the way.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Lester, Matt, Abby, and Sexton were waiting for them in the conference room. Connor ushered them towards their customary seats on the opposite side of the table, and then slid into a chair next to Abby. Becker, who had followed them from the guest quarters, took up his normal position just inside the door.  
  
As usual, Nick had the distinct feeling that he was facing some kind of inquisition.  
  
“What’s going on?” he asked, before Lester or any of the others could say anything. “Connor mentioned that the doctor had found something.”  
  
Lester shot Connor an annoyed look, and the young man squirmed a little in his seat. Then Lester looked back to Nick and Stephen and nodded. “That is correct,” he said. “Dr. Sexton has discovered something. Something rather…disturbing, I’m afraid.”  
  
“What is it?” said Stephen. “What’s wrong with us?”  
  
“I think I’d better let the doctor explain.” He gestured to Sexton.  
  
Sexton was wearing a serious expression as he began to speak. “There is nothing _wrong_ with you, as such,” he said. “Apart from the few scars and minor injuries we’ve discovered during your examinations, and the general effects of surviving in a hostile environment with poor diet and cleanliness, you’re both in good health.”  
  
“So what’s this all about, then?” Nick demanded.  
  
“There isn’t really an easy way of breaking this to you…”  
  
“Just tell us!”  
  
“Neither of you is who you think you are.”  
  
“What the hell does that mean?” asked Stephen.  
  
Nick glanced quickly at all the other people facing them across the table. Matt’s face was completely blank, Connor looked deeply uncomfortable, and Abby refused to catch his eye. Even Lester seemed ill at ease.  
  
“In a nutshell, neither of you is the original Nick Cutter or Stephen Hart.”  
  
“So you mean we’re from another timeline or something?”  
  
“No, what I mean is, you’re both clones.”


	3. Chapter 3

  
Nick had been staring at the same patch of wall for the last ten minutes, his expression completely blank.  
  
It would have worried Stephen, except for that fact that he knew exactly what Nick was going through, and therefore couldn’t really think of anything to say to snap him out of it.  
  
After Sexton’s blunt, shocking pronouncement, there had been a lot more talk about things like DNA, cell ageing, and all sorts of other concepts that Stephen would have struggled to get his head around on a good day, never mind a day in which he’d just been told he wasn’t actually real.  
  
Sexton’s tests had apparently shown that both Stephen and Nick were, despite looking like fully grown adult males well into their thirties and forties respectively, less than two years old. More like a year and a half, in fact. Eighteen months ago, neither of them had existed.  
  
It was something Stephen was having a little trouble accepting.  
  
Of course, the inevitable question had come up. If they were clones, who had made them?  
  
And of course, the inevitable answer had been: Helen.  
  
For a reason none of them could quite work out, Helen had made two incredibly sophisticated clones of Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart, and then dumped them in an apocalyptic future to fend for themselves.  
  
And those two clones were them.  
  
They were the clones.  
  
Stephen didn’t remember a lot of the conversation after that, although he knew that it hadn’t taken long before Lester noticed that neither of them were following proceedings particularly well, and had had Becker escort them back to their quarters.  
  
And now it was taking everything Stephen had to resist the urge to pick something up and throw it at the wall. He almost envied Nick’s virtual catatonia. It might have been preferable to the anger that was suddenly coursing through him.  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered savagely, and aimed a kick at a chair that sent it screeching across the floor.  
  
Nick blinked, stirred, and then looked at him. “Stephen?”  
  
“No,” Stephen corrected him harshly. “ _Not_ Stephen, remember?”  
  
Nick looked at him helplessly for a moment, and then, seemingly unable to help himself, said again, “Stephen…”  
  
“Shut _up_ ,” Stephen snapped, and then flung himself down into the chair he’d just kicked, folding his arms across his chest and glowering at the floor.  
  
“Stephen,” said Nick for a third time, and then walked across the room and lowered himself to his knees in front of Stephen, looking up at him beseechingly.  
  
Stephen refused to meet his eyes.  
  
“Stephen, please look at me.”  
  
“Stop _calling_ me that! It’s not my name!”  
  
“Yes, it _is_ ,” Nick insisted. “You _are_ Stephen. Just as much as the other one was.”  
  
Now Stephen looked at him. “Except for the fact that most of the memories in my head _never happened_ ,” he hissed. “Not to me, and not to you. We’re just copies, fakes. We’re not real.”  
  
“And what about all the stuff that’s happened since we were created?” Nick snapped, suddenly angry. “Was none of that real either? Because I know my feelings for you are real, no matter if they’re based on memories that aren’t mine. Are you saying yours aren’t? That you were just faking those too?”  
  
“What?” Stephen was shocked out of his anger. “Of course not! I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean that!”  
  
Nick placed his hands on Stephen’s thighs and gave them a light squeeze. “Every day we survived in that place, I thanked god that you were there with me,” he said fervently. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”  
  
Stephen didn’t really know what to say to that. He could only stare back at Nick, mute.  
  
Nick sighed. “But of course, it doesn’t change what we are,” he finally acknowledged. “It’s so strange. I would swear that all the things I remember doing in the past, I actually _did_. All the anomalies we’ve dealt with…”  
  
“ _Not_ we,” Stephen interrupted automatically, although his heart wasn’t really in it any more.  
  
“All those years at the university,” Nick continued stubbornly. “I would _swear_ that was all us.” A small frown crossed his face. “What kind of technology must Helen have had, to create us…?” he said. His expression changed to what Stephen privately called his ‘thinking face’. It was one Stephen never tired of seeing.  
  
“We’re different,” Nick said. “Different to clones Helen had when she invaded the ARC. From what Connor’s said, what happened here was the same as what’s in our memories, and those clones were rudimentary at best. Physically flawless, but mentally deficient. Only just capable of obeying straightforward orders, and doing what they’d been programmed to. They were completely unable to think for themselves.”  
  
“But we can,” said Stephen, drawn into the discussion in spite of himself. “We’re…”  
  
“Fully functioning human beings,” Nick finished. “We’re as good as the real thing.” He looked straight at Stephen. “We _are_ the real thing.”  
  
Stephen held his gaze for a moment, and then let his head drop, only for Nick’s fingers to catch him under the chin and force it back up, before he leaned in to kiss him.  
  
“We _are_ real,” he murmured against Stephen’s lips. “ _This_ is real. Don’t ever forget that.”  
  
Stephen nodded, even as his mouth betrayed him. “But we’re not…”  
  
“Them?” Nick questioned. “Why do we have to be them? Why can’t we be us?” He stood up and held out a hand to Stephen, pulling him to his feet and leading him towards their still joined beds. “Come on. Let’s just be us for a little while.”  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
A little while later, a sudden attack on pins and needles in his leg had Nick shifting carefully, trying to relieve the sensation. He wasn’t sure if Stephen was actually asleep, but he nonetheless didn’t want to disturb the other man.  
  
He wasn’t sure if he’d fully laid Stephen’s doubts to rest, and to be honest, he wouldn’t be all that surprised if he hadn’t. Stephen wasn’t the only one who was having those doubts after all – Nick had merely shoved his aside while he’d tried to stop his lover from completely imploding from the shock of it all.  
  
But despite his uncertainties, he _was_ sure that they _should_ believe what he’d told Stephen, even if they were still a little way off actually achieving that belief.  
  
He was determined not to let Helen triumph over them again.  
  
The pins and needles weren’t going away quickly enough, and Nick tried to flex his leg a little more, even as he catalogued the fact that he was clearly physically perfect enough to actually experience pins and needles in the first place.  
  
“Something the matter?” Stephen asked, alerting Nick to the fact that he hadn’t been asleep at all.  
  
“My leg’s gone dead,” Nick confessed. “Pins and needles.”  
  
“Oh.” Stephen shuffled away a bit, leaving Nick with more space to move his leg around to try to get the blood circulating properly again.  
  
Nick had to resist the urge to pull him back, pins and needles be damned.  
  
There were a few moments of silence, and then, just as Nick’s leg started to feel more normal again, Stephen asked quietly, “Why do you think Helen did this?”  
  
Nick thought for a moment. Then, “I have no idea,” he confessed.  
  
“I mean, what does she actually gain from it? Why create two extremely sophisticated clones, and then just dump them? It doesn’t make any sense.”  
  
“Altruism?” Nick suggested, and then hurried to elaborate as Stephen raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Maybe we weren’t quite what she needed, so she let us go free.”  
  
“Like releasing captive animals into the wild?” Stephen said. “Well, she couldn’t have picked a wilder spot, could she?”  
  
“Helen’s brand of altruism does leave something to be desired,” Nick admitted. Then he sighed. “We’ll probably never know,” he said. “From what the others have told us, it seems this Danny Quinn character went after Helen to stop her in her tracks. If he’s succeeded, then we’ll probably never see her again. We’ll never be able to ask her.”  
  
Anything further Stephen might have been about to say was interrupted by a knock at the door to their quarters.  
  
“I trust you gentlemen are in a fit state to receive visitors,” came Lester’s voice through the intercom.  
  
“Of course,” Nick called out, rising from the bed. He and Stephen were still both fully clothed – neither of them had felt comfortable going any further than a bit of kissing and cuddling while in this environment, particularly not with a guard outside the door at all times, playing the unwitting audience.  
  
“Good.” The door opened and Lester entered the room, accompanied by Matt Anderson, and with Becker and another soldier following behind.  
  
Without being asked, Lester seated himself in a chair. Matt remained standing, and the two soldiers took up positions behind them.  
  
“I’m afraid we need to have a discussion, gentlemen,” Lester said.  
  
“Another one?” Stephen questioned tiredly.  
  
But Nick merely narrowed his eyes at Lester. Something was off here. Why hadn’t they been summoned to the conference room as normal? Why did Matt’s face look even blanker than usual? And why had Lester felt the need to bring a bodyguard of _two_ soldiers?  
  
“What’s going on?” he asked suspiciously.  
  
Lester shot him a sharp look, as if annoyed that Nick had already cottoned on to the strange atmosphere in the room. Nick could sense Stephen also looking at him, and then attuning himself to whatever it was Nick had felt.  
  
“The revelation that you two are clones, and most likely created by the erstwhile Helen Cutter, casts things in rather a different light,” began Lester. “And while we have already been taking precautions with you, it has now been decided that we should take further ones to ensure the ARC’s safety.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Stephen demanded.  
  
“He means that the last time there were clones in the ARC, they threatened its employees and then blew the place up,” said Nick flatly, the memory as sharp as if he’d really been there.  
  
“What? You mean he thinks…” The dawning realisation in Stephen’s voice was obvious. “He thinks we’re here to do the same thing?”  
  
“We cannot be too careful,” said Lester. “There’s no telling what Helen is capable of.”  
  
“And what about what _we’re_ capable of?” Stephen snapped. “Have either of us shown any signs in the last week that we’re intending to blow up the ARC?”  
  
“No,” Lester allowed. “But then, you haven’t been given the opportunity, have you.”  
  
“But we don’t _want_ to blow the ARC up!” continued Stephen. He laughed incredulously. “At least, _I_ don’t? What about you, Nick – do you have any desire for explosions and destruction?”  
  
“No,” replied Nick, still watching Lester.  
  
“See,” said Stephen triumphantly.  
  
“Not good enough, unfortunately,” said Lester. “We can rule out the possibility of embedded conditioning. For all we know, Helen’s plan might have been for you to be integrated back into the ARC and the anomaly team, and then as soon as you have access to everything again, some hidden switch would flip, and your real purpose would reveal itself.”  
  
“Oh, come _on_ ,” said Stephen. “You can’t seriously believe that? That’s convoluted, even by Helen’s standards. There was no guarantee that we’d even be able to get back here from the future, never mind that we’d be welcomed back with open arms.”  
  
Nick felt a familiar flicker of irritation as he heard Stephen’s (albeit muted) defence of Helen, but then he pushed it away when he realised Stephen was right. It was a ridiculous theory.  
  
But Lester didn’t seem to think so. “We’ve already seen that Helen has ways of manipulating the anomalies that were previously unsuspected,” he said. “She could easily have known when the right anomaly would open to allow you to come back here.”  
  
“But how could she have known that we’d be in the vicinity when it _did_ open?” Stephen questioned. “Unless she was there watching us the whole time, and opening it herself when we were close by. Which is clearly nuts!”  
  
“Nonetheless,” Lester said, “until we can prove that you’re not a threat to the ARC, I’m afraid those extra precautions I spoke about will have to be put in place. To start with, you’ll be confined to these quarters from now on, and the guard outside the door will be doubled.”  
  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stephen muttered, although he seemed to have realised that it was no use arguing any longer.  
  
“And how are you going to prove that we’re not a threat?” Nick asked quietly. “By your reasoning, we’ll act perfectly normally until we get the opportunity to carry out our ‘mission’. But without being given any opportunity, that’ll never happen, so you’ll never get any proof. It’s a vicious circle.”  
  
“Connor and Dr. Sexton are working on it,” replied Lester, although Nick thought he could detect an element of discomfort in the words. Lester didn’t like having to do this, he realised.  
  
That wouldn’t stop him, however.  
  
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Lester continued, rising to his feet. “But this is the way things have to be. At least for now.”  
  
He and Matt, who hadn’t spoken a word, left. Becker and the other soldier took up positions outside the door once more.  
  
And that, it seemed, was that.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Things had returned to their limbo-like state, although now it felt more like purgatory. Nick and Stephen had already been sick of staring at the same walls all day long, and now it was driving them crazy.  
  
The air of suspicion that hung over them didn’t help matters either. It was obvious that neither Connor, nor Abby, nor Becker wanted to believe that the pair of them were saboteurs of some description, but it was also equally obvious that none of them could quite rid themselves of slight fear that they might be.  
  
Matt Anderson was clearly a lot less sure of them, and Lester was sticking so rigidly to his guns that Nick half expected him to order them taken out and shot in the name of national security at any moment.  
  
The only comfort they had was in each other, and even that wasn’t as comforting as it could have been. Stephen was still clearly unsettled by what he _was_ (and truth be told, so was Nick), and somehow their conversations always seemed to descend into bickering, sniping arguments.  
  
Nick would have taken these as a sign that this situation was eroding them, wearing away at what they had, if it hadn’t been for the fact that come the night they still sought each other out, clinging together on their bed like drowning men, exchanging kisses and touches in the darkness, even if they never went any further.  
  
Stephen was the only thing keeping Nick sane through all this – he just had to trust that Stephen knew that.  
  
They weren’t kept apprised of any progress relating to them. Occasionally, Connor or Sexton or Matt would turn up and ask them questions, but they never answered any that were asked them in return, although Nick could sense that Connor at least wanted to.  
  
He had no idea if anyone had found anything like proof that they might not be ticking time bombs, and worse, he even found himself starting to wonder whether that might not actually be the case. Maybe they were just part of some new mad, twisted scheme of Helen’s.  
  
On the days when he couldn’t ignore those thoughts, he clung harder than ever to Stephen at night.  
  
And so it went on, until one day Connor was suddenly rushing into their quarters, waving a rather scrappy-looking notebook. Matt was following behind, looking rather annoyed (a real emotion, Nick thought wryly to himself).  
  
“Professor! It’s all right! I’ve found…”  
  
“Connor!” said Matt sharply, cutting him off. “We should wait until we’re sure to do this.”  
  
Connor spared the other man a fleeting, frustrated glance. “But we have to tell them! It’s important!”  
  
“What is it, Connor?” Nick asked, as patiently as he could. It was obvious that that Connor had discovered something significant. And it was equally obvious that Matt was reluctant to tell them what it was, either because he had some agenda of his own or, more charitably, because he didn’t want Nick and Stephen to get their hopes up.  
  
But none of that was going to stop Nick trying to get the information out of Connor, whatever it was. He was sick and tired of waiting for something to happen.  
  
Connor glanced at Matt again. There was a moment’s pause, and then Matt shrugged, as if to say _on your own head be it_ , and gestured for Connor to continue.  
  
Grinning widely, Connor turned to Nick and Stephen. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!” he exclaimed.  
  
“Think of what?” said Stephen, obviously amused by the sight of Connor’s irrepressible enthusiasm, something that hadn’t really been in evidence since they’d returned.  
  
“Looking in Helen’s notebook. The one Danny took when he found her in Christine’s facility.” Connor waved the notebook at them. “She had all sorts of stuff written in there. About Site 333, and Claudia Brown…”  
  
Nick felt the same twist in his stomach as he always did when Claudia’s name was mentioned, although a second later he remembered that actually, he’d never know her.  
  
“And about us?” Stephen queried.  
  
“We don’t know for sure that it’s about you,” Matt interjected quietly, obviously attempting to be the voice of reason in this conversation.  
  
“It can’t be about anyone else,” said Connor. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”  
  
“What did she write, Connor?” Nick asked, trying to keep his voice as patient as possible, and resisting the urge to simply rip the notebook out of Connor’s hands and look through it himself.  
  
Connor grinned again, and then flicked quickly through the notebook until he found the page he wanted. Then he cleared his throat with a faintly dramatic air, and started to read.  
  
 _“Subjects show remarkable development, both physical and mental. They have advanced far beyond the parameters expected. Too far, in fact, for my purposes. Neither are suitable. We must begin again.”_  
  
“That could refer to anyone,” said Matt, speaking before either Nick or Stephen could.  
  
But he was obviously just playing devil’s advocate, as Connor merely turned a couple of pages, and then started reading aloud again.  
  
 _“Subjects have been released through an anomaly into the destroyed future we are trying to prevent. Their memories have been modified, and it remains to be seen how they interact with their new environment.”_  
  
“That sounds like she was planning on studying us, to see if we could survive of not,” said Stephen, and Nick frowned at the idea of their being merely an experiment of Helen’s, to be watched until she got bored, or until they died.  
  
Although it did tally with the idea he’d suggested to Stephen when they’d discussed it previously. Even if altruism didn’t appear to factor into things.  
  
“Well, there’s nothing else about you in the notebook,” Connor said. “After this, it’s all about Site 333 and her plans for that. Of course, she might have written down more observations about you somewhere else, from after she let you go…”  
  
“That makes me feel so much better, thanks, Connor,” said Stephen wryly.  
  
Connor blushed slightly, but then after a moment his excitement re-emerged. “But you do see what this means, right?” he said. “It means that you weren’t part of another plan of Helen’s to infiltrate the ARC or the anomaly project. You were just…”  
  
“Spares,” Nick finished  
  
“Yeah, we were far too advanced for her,” Stephen added. Then, to Nick’s surprise, he started to laugh.  
  
He stared at Stephen for a moment, and then started laughing himself. It was nice to think of themselves as being too advanced for Helen, even in this slightly twisted way.  
  
“So, is Lester going to let us out of here now, or not?” Nick asked, when he and Stephen had themselves under control again.  
  
Matt looked at them both for a moment, ignoring Connor, who was obviously desperate to say yes, but knowing the final word didn’t rest with him. “I’ll talk to him,” he said finally, which right now was good enough for Nick.  
  
*~*~*~*~*  
  
Nick looked around the flat. It was pretty nondescript and rather beige, but that wasn’t the ARC, and that made it better than anything he could have imagined.  
  
Lester had finally relented, with, Nick suspected, some input from Matt and some badgering from Connor, and let Stephen and he leave the ARC. There were still several outstanding issues, such as whether the pair of them would be allowed back on the anomaly project, but Lester had at least agreed that neither of them were mad clone bombers from the future, and were in fact safe to be let loose.  
  
But now they had been, Nick didn’t know quite what to do with himself. He felt like he _should_ be helping with the project – although he and Stephen were technically less than two years old, they _did_ have all the memories of the original Nick and Stephen’s lives before that, memories that appeared to be true and accurate, for all nobody _still_ had any idea how Helen had replicated them and planted them in the clones’ heads.  
  
But then, there were lots of things they still didn’t know, such as how neither Stephen or Nick had noticed the lack of the scars that would have tallied with their implanted memories. Nick found the idea – suggested by Connor, naturally – that they’d been _programmed_ not to notice rather creepy.  
  
And with Helen likely out of their hair for good now, they’d probably never get the answers to such questions.  
  
Still, at least Lester didn’t feel that these mysteries required them to remain locked up. Nick supposed he should be grateful that Lester had thawed that much. They just had to hope that, given time, he’d also see that they could still be useful to the project.  
  
Nick shook away these thoughts as a pair of arms slid around his waist and a chin came to rest on his shoulder.  
  
“Not exactly homely, is it?” Stephen said, right next to Nick’s ear.  
  
That was another thing they had managed to carry the day on. Both Nick and Stephen had refused to be separated from the other, and insisted that they would share whatever accommodation was given to them. They had both been pretty sure that everyone had cottoned on to their relationship by now (they hadn’t been taking great pains to hide it, both needing the comfort the other provided), and that had been confirmed when Lester had merely rolled his eyes, muttered something that sounded like “How sickening,” and then shooed them away without an argument.  
  
“No,” Nick agreed. “But it’ll do for now. It has a kitchen stocked with food, a decent shower, and a comfortable bed, and that’s all I care about right now.”  
  
“In that order?” Stephen asked. Nick could hear the smile in his voice.  
  
“Not sure. Ask me when I’ve had a square meal and a hot shower,” Nick replied teasingly.  
  
Then he twisted in Stephen’s arms and looked the other man in the eye. “You seem happier about things,” he said.  
  
“Yeah, well…” Stephen smiled at him crookedly. “I can’t say I’m completely over it – maybe I never will be – but we’re here, and we’re alive, and we’re together. Things could be worse.”  
  
“I’m trying very hard to be flattered,” Nick said wryly.  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
“Yes, I do.” Nick leaned in and gave Stephen a quick kiss on the lips. “Luckily for you.”  
  
“It’s like you said,” continued Stephen, not rising to Nick’s teasing. “We should just try and be us, not them. I want to try and do that,” he finished.  
  
“Me too,” replied Nick. “Now, what do you say we go and test out just how comfortable the bed is?”  
  
“I though you wanted a meal and a shower first?”  
  
“Changed my mind,” said Nick. “I can do that, you know.” He gave Stephen a sudden fierce look. “We can _both_ do that. We can do _anything_ we want.”  
  
Stephen nodded. “I know.”  
  
“Come on, then,” said Nick, switching his expression to a wicked grin. “Let’s find the bedroom.”  
  
Things weren’t fine yet, he thought as he tugged Stephen along behind him. There were still many, many things to be resolved, many decisions to be made. But it was starting to feel like things might be okay.  
  
It was starting to feel like they might have come home.


End file.
